The Triumph of Sarah They say opposites attract. Indeed, the first Jewish couple, Abraham and Sarah, could not have been more different from one another. Yet, only together were they able to change history, by spreading monotheism and becoming the patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish people. Abraham embodied loving kindness. Abraham saw the good in everybody. Abraham's love for humanity was blinding; he was not always able to see the importance of setting boundaries and protecting his environment from negative influences. Sarah, by contrast, embodied discipline, balancing Abraham's unbridled love, protecting it from enabling negativity, and channeling it to inspire others to grow and earn love. Abraham was a man of abstract ideas. His original name was Abram, or Avram, in Hebrew it is a combination of two words, "av" and “ram" which means exalted father. In the kabbalah "father" and "mother" represent wisdom and understanding, which are the "parents" that give birth to the "children", the emotions. Thus, "Av" "ram" represents abstract ideas. Sarah, whose name comes from the word for minister, represents the Kabbalistic attribute of Malchut, kingship, which represents Divine speech, the ability to articulate the abstract, to create reality within the world. This week's Torah portion is called Chayei Sarah, "the life of Sarah". Although it discusses the events that occurred after her passing, the portion represents not her demise, but the triumph and perpetuation of her legacy. For only in this portion do we see Abraham himself adopting her perspective and implementing her vision of expressing abstract ideals in a tangible lifestyle. Only in this portion does Abraham invest himself in purchasing a portion of land, the cave of Machepelah for Sarah's burial, that would concretize the Divine promise, made decades earlier, that the land of Canaan would be given to Abraham, and begin to transform it into reality. Only in this portion, "the life of Sarah", does Abraham dispatch Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac, realizing that his abstract ideas must be embodied and lived through the continuity of family life. The life and legacy of Sarah remind us that Judaism is not a set of beliefs and ideals, "abstract father", but rather the implementation of those ideals in the real world. Abraham and Sarah began the Jewish story, the story of introducing the exalted G-d, into every sphere of life and every corner of the earth. (Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Chayey Sarah 5748)
ב"ה